Annual Planet Walk!

Hope you enjoyed the 2024 Planet Walk On Saturday, May 11, 2024.  Plan to visit the solar system again May 2025!

Friends of Anne Arundel County Trails and the Anne Arundel Community College Super Sciences Club have teamed up to offer a day of public programs focusing on our solar system. The events will include a Planet Walk on the B&A Trail and an illustrated evening presentation on the scientific programs on the upcoming manned Artemis Program missions to the moon and its environs. That program will be held at Anne Arundel Community College’s Arnold campus, followed by a Stargazing Party at the end of the evening at the campus Observatory. Admission and parking are free for all events.
The events will kick off at 10:00 am with a Planet Walk along a 4.7 mile segment of the B&A Trail between Glen Burnie and Severna Park. This portion of the trail features two sculptures and eight Planet Stations representing the Sun and the planets of our solar system. Each sculptural Planet marker is spaced at each planet’s proportional distance from the Sun. Between 10:00 am and 2:30 pm, planetary scientists, engineers and astronomers from NASA Goddard, area
colleges and universities and local astronomy clubs will be at each of the planet stations to provide information and activities relating to that planet, as well as to answer questions.
Participants can walk or bicycle the 4.7 mile course between the Sun sculpture, located just south of 800 Aquahart Road (behind Harundale Plaza) in Glen Burnie and the Pluto sculpture located just north of Earleigh Heights Road Ranger Station in Severna Park. Ample free parking is located adjacent to the beginning of the Planet Walk in Glen Burnie. It is recommended that participants
start at the Sun sculpture. For participants seeking a shorter or less time consuming experience, the six planets between the Sun and Saturn can be
visited in the first 1 1/4 miles of the Planet Walk between Harundale Plaza and Marley Station Mall. This portion of the Planet Walk program will be cancelled in the event of heavy rain.
Friends of Anne Arundel County Trails
Special evening events are also scheduled at Anne Arundel Community
College’s Arnold Campus. Beginning at 7:00 pm, the Planet Walk will feature a presentation titled “We Are Going: Science on NASA’s Artemis Mission”. The program will take place in the Student Union Dining Hall (the Hawk’s Nest), located near Parking Lot A. Attendees may access Parking Lot A via the westernmost campus entrance off College Parkway, opposite Peninsula Farm Road in Arnold. Dr. Amanda Nahm, the Deputy Artemis Lunar Science Lead for the mission, will discuss its scientific goals. She will also discuss how the scientific capabilities of the spacecraft are implemented throughout the design and construction phases of the mission and also the development of
standardized data analysis protocols for this and other missions.
Dr. Nahm’s personal expertise is in the area of planetary tectonics and she has studied numerous solar system bodies with solid surfaces throughout her career.
She received her doctorate in geology from the University of Nevada. Dr. Nahm works in NASA’s Planetary Science Division and Exploration Science Strategy Integration Office at NASA’s Washington, DC Headquarters.
Following the presentation, there will be an opportunity for informal discussion with the speaker. Also, beginning at approximately 8:30 pm, the Super Sciences Club will be hosting an Evening Stargazing Party at the AACC Observatory. The Observatory is located at the back of Parking Lots A and B, a short walk from the Student Union. Participants will be able to utilize the Observatory’s telescopes or may bring their own. Club members will be available to assist with the observations. The Stargazing Party will be cancelled in the event that overcast conditions or inclement weather obscures the heavens.
The 2024 Planet Walk will give participants a chance to gain greater insight into our solar system as well as to learn about our current lunar research projects.
Additional information about these events is available at
www.friendsofaatrails.org. A campus map of Anne Arundel Community College
may be found at https://www.aacc.edu>Campus-Map_8.5×11-1.pdf
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Jack Keene Friends of Anne Arundel County Trails jt_keene.48@verizon.net

Distance Chart

Sun to Pluto Distance: 3,670,000,000 miles
Length of Planet Walk: 4.7 miles
Scale: 1 Planet Walk mile represents 781,000,000 miles

About Planet Walk

One of the unique features of the B&A Trail is the inclusion of a Planet Walk stretching between Glen Burnie and Severna Park. This 4.7 mile segment of the trail includes monuments to the Sun and each of the planets of our solar system from Mercury to Pluto, each located at its proportional distance from the Sun. On the B&A Planet Walk, each actual mile represents a distance of 781,000,000 miles. Walking or bicycling the Planet Walk, it is easy to grasp the relative proximity of the planets, with distances between them measured in hundredths of a mile for Earth’s closest neighbors, while in the outer solar system, the distances between planets stretch to nearly 1.3 miles.

The Planet Walk was the vision of Stan Lebar, the first president of the Friends of Anne Arundel County Trails. Stan worked in the aerospace industry and led the design team which produced the miniature TV camera which accompanied America’s astronauts on their first lunar landing mission.

The Planet Walk starts just south of Aquahart Road in Glen Burnie, MD at the appropriately-named Lebar Plaza. There a twenty-six foot high sculpture representing the Sun was erected in 2004. Judy Sutton Moore of Silver Spring, MD was the sculptor for this and the other sculptures and monuments of the Planet Walk. Smaller intermediate monuments mark the planet locations, each engraved with that planet’s distance from the Sun. The final sculpture, representing Pluto and the lesser planets, is located behind a small plaza located just north of Earleigh Heights Road in Severna Park.

Each Spring, a day is set aside to provide the public with more detailed information about our solar system. Planetary scientists and astronomers staff tables at each planet location, answering questions as well as dispensing literature about each planet and conducting activities. In the evening, a related program is presented at Anne Arundel Community College’s Arnold campus, followed by a public viewing at the AACC Observatory. Details about this event are posted each spring on this website.